HMSwolfe
Master Member
It took me a while to work up interest in watching this season. I feel like it’s one of those things that, once it runs out of steam, it’s hard to pick back up. That being said, I did binge it over two days once I finally got around to doing it, and finished the season around 3 AM.
I honestly cannot see where people are calling this season a “return to form”, “the best since season one”, or even “the best season”. Sincerely. The show has always managed to hit its emotional beats—it’s one of the main reasons I think the show has run as long as it has. But this had far more in common with season three than the first two seasons. Barring the Pittsburgh episode, which I hardly think counts because you can skip it and not miss anything, season two has been my favorite so far. The way the characters were deepened, their relationships changed, everything. Moreover, it felt like a natural, planned continuation of season one.
Seasons three and four, in my eyes, do two things: hit you over the head hard with direct comparisons to their source material, and retcon major plot points and previous narratives to fit the new directions of the show. I mean, I thought the “new Coke vs. Coke is like the original Thing From Another World vs. John Carpenter’s The Thing” was unsubtle, but the direct comparison to Freddy Krueger? Really? As if anyone wouldn’t get that the dude with the jacked-up face and the long fingers who haunts teens and then kills them in a dreamlike state wasn’t an obvious nod to Nightmare on Elm Street?
Again, I’m not bashing this season or last season (that much). But the narrative—the actual plot events—as well as some of the characters has gotten very muddled. I mean, you build up Jonathan and Nancy for three seasons and then turn him into a deadbeat stoner and split them up? I mean, they sort of already did something similar by making Hopper too silly and bumbling in season three, what with the fixation on Magnum PI and stuff like that, but still.
Like I said, the emotional moments still hit. Watching Eddy die was hard. It sucked. Watching Max…have whatever it is that ultimately happened to her was too. And there were other moments in this seasons I felt were great. Erica, for the first time, felt distinctly funny and likable. Max’s story was great, just killer. Watching Hopper and Eleven reunite made me tear up just as bad as the finale to season three. Murray was fantastic—he just seems to get better and better. But this was in no way a “well-written return to form” for the show.
I mean, retconning everything so that there would be a human (or more easily personified) antagonist responsible for everything? It felt cheap. The whole season I sat there watching Vecna Krueger do his little teen killing spree wondering “how the hell does this tie in to the other seasons?” And the answer ultimately was “it doesn’t, so we’re just going to retcon them”. I was also getting major Phantom Menace vibes with the “everybody’s got to be doing something during the finale so we’ll give them all a part to play”. This was all I could think over during some of these segments.
I would have been glad that there was a planned final season regardless of whether or not I felt this season hit the narrative points needed, but now I’m very glad, because I feel it’s clear that the show runners, while still capable with the interpersonal writing and hitting those heartstrings just right, have lost the thread on the overall plot, if there ever was one.
I honestly cannot see where people are calling this season a “return to form”, “the best since season one”, or even “the best season”. Sincerely. The show has always managed to hit its emotional beats—it’s one of the main reasons I think the show has run as long as it has. But this had far more in common with season three than the first two seasons. Barring the Pittsburgh episode, which I hardly think counts because you can skip it and not miss anything, season two has been my favorite so far. The way the characters were deepened, their relationships changed, everything. Moreover, it felt like a natural, planned continuation of season one.
Seasons three and four, in my eyes, do two things: hit you over the head hard with direct comparisons to their source material, and retcon major plot points and previous narratives to fit the new directions of the show. I mean, I thought the “new Coke vs. Coke is like the original Thing From Another World vs. John Carpenter’s The Thing” was unsubtle, but the direct comparison to Freddy Krueger? Really? As if anyone wouldn’t get that the dude with the jacked-up face and the long fingers who haunts teens and then kills them in a dreamlike state wasn’t an obvious nod to Nightmare on Elm Street?
Again, I’m not bashing this season or last season (that much). But the narrative—the actual plot events—as well as some of the characters has gotten very muddled. I mean, you build up Jonathan and Nancy for three seasons and then turn him into a deadbeat stoner and split them up? I mean, they sort of already did something similar by making Hopper too silly and bumbling in season three, what with the fixation on Magnum PI and stuff like that, but still.
Like I said, the emotional moments still hit. Watching Eddy die was hard. It sucked. Watching Max…have whatever it is that ultimately happened to her was too. And there were other moments in this seasons I felt were great. Erica, for the first time, felt distinctly funny and likable. Max’s story was great, just killer. Watching Hopper and Eleven reunite made me tear up just as bad as the finale to season three. Murray was fantastic—he just seems to get better and better. But this was in no way a “well-written return to form” for the show.
I mean, retconning everything so that there would be a human (or more easily personified) antagonist responsible for everything? It felt cheap. The whole season I sat there watching Vecna Krueger do his little teen killing spree wondering “how the hell does this tie in to the other seasons?” And the answer ultimately was “it doesn’t, so we’re just going to retcon them”. I was also getting major Phantom Menace vibes with the “everybody’s got to be doing something during the finale so we’ll give them all a part to play”. This was all I could think over during some of these segments.
I would have been glad that there was a planned final season regardless of whether or not I felt this season hit the narrative points needed, but now I’m very glad, because I feel it’s clear that the show runners, while still capable with the interpersonal writing and hitting those heartstrings just right, have lost the thread on the overall plot, if there ever was one.
